The Dangers of Being a Good Girl

I am a recovering Good Girl. When I was young I learnt to be quiet when I was told to be, I did all my jobs, I got excellent grades, I didn’t complain, I didn’t get angry and I didn’t break the rules (although I did go on to break a lot of rules – with a lot of attitude – in my developing quest for autonomy.)

That way of operating rolled into my adult years. I was a good girlfriend, a good worker and a good friend. I kept making top grades in my further studies and I strived to do everything ‘right’. It was coupled with rebellion, meaning life did become somewhat polarised. I was playing 2 sides of extremes. Drugs and alcohol were a welcome relaxing relief from the pressures I put on myself to be ‘good’.

I was great at doing everything for everyone. I thrived on the approval of others. It can be an addictive kind of thing when one doesn’t do self-approval.

Over the years my game began to unravel. I pushed addiction, only to realise some damaging repercussions – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I also experienced burnout a number of times from constant focus outside of myself whilst I did ‘allthethings’.  

Here are what I believe the dangers of being a Good Girl are:

• Resentment builds when you’re doing everything for everyone else. That can lead to complaining, blaming and arguing.

• Others approval becomes more important than self-approval. That means our core belief that ‘I’m not good enough’ gets ignored rather than confronted and explored.

• You abdicate your own needs to please others. It’s not uncommon to have no idea what your needs even are when you’re a Good Girl. In fact, we can expect others to meet our needs for us. That’s not healthy.

• You get tired, often the big kind of tired – exhaustion.

• Dis-ease results due to lack of connection to self, repressing our emotions and ignoring our needs. That can be physical, emotional or mental. It can even be spiritual dis-ease.

How do we break this pattern? It requires some exploration of where this habit/addiction originated. It may need some inner child work, some acceptance of your challenging history, some reparenting, learning about boundaries and some genuine self-love and care. For now, what is resonating?  What might you do to change these patterns?

Wishing you self-love – the kind that sits in your cells.
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With light
Dawn


Photo by Caroline Hernandez on Unsplash